Bishop Stephen Jensen

Ordained to the Presbyterate:May 24, 1980Ordained to the Episcopate: April 2, 2013

Bishop Stephen Jensen was born May 30, 1954 in North Vancouver, BC. He attended St. Peter’s Seminary in London, Ontario where he received his BA in Philosophy in 1976 and a Master of Divinity in 1979.

He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Vancouver on May 24, 1980. From 1984 to 1998 he was a pastor in three parishes: Immaculate Conception and Corpus Christi in Vancouver and St. Ann’s in Abbotsford.

Since 1984 he has served on the Catholic School Board, overseeing a total of 46 elementary and secondary schools in the Vancouver Archdiocese. He was named a Prelate of Honor in 1996 and Vicar for Education in 1997, assisting with elementary and secondary Catholic schools, as well as adult catechesis.

In 2001 he earned a doctorate in Education, specializing in educational leadership, at the Jesuit University of San Francisco. In 2009, the Most Rev. J. Michael Miller, CSB, Archbishop of Vancouver, named him Vicar General of the Archdiocese.

He was Moderator of the Curia and Vicar for Evangelization and Education, a member of the Archdiocesan Finance Council, Chair of the Steering Committee of the archdiocesan annual appeal, and a member of archdiocesan advisory boards for Catholic cemeteries, evangelization, stewardship and vocations.

He is a member of the board of the theological school St. Mark’s College and the undergraduate liberal arts program Corpus Christi College – both affiliated with the University of British Columbia.

He is a trustee of Providence Health Care, the largest Catholic health care organization in Canada.

On January 3, 2013 Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Bishop of the Diocese of Prince George. His episcopal ordination and installation was conferred by the Most Reverend J. Michael Miller, Archbishop of Vancouver – assisted by Bishops David Monroe of Kamloops and Brian Dunn of Antigonish – at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Prince George on April 2, 2013.

Bishop Jensen has chosen the motto, Parare Vias Eius, which means “To prepare his ways”. It is from the song of Zechariah in Luke 1:76, a reference to the mission of St. John the Baptist as prophesied by Isaiah.